The third-quarter loss was $380 million, or 17 cents a share, compared with a profit of $5.71 billion, or $1.40, a year earlier, the New York-based company said today in a statement. Shares of the company rose 2.6 percent at 7:50 a.m. after profit adjusted for one-time items beat analysts’ estimates.

...The pretax legal charge was $9.2 billion, compared with $684 million a year earlier. Litigation reserves at the end of September were $23 billion, the bank said, adding that “reasonably possible” losses in excess of those reserves were $5.7 billion.

And the (now perennial) kicker...

JPMorgan rose to $53.90 in New York trading from $52.52 at the close yesterday. Earnings adjusted for one-time items were $1.42 a share, exceeding the $1.30 average estimate of 20 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Pray thee tell me, how many times do "one time" items have to occur before they're no longer considered "one time" items???!!! JP Morgan "found" earnings in the form of reserve releases (again), from the press release:

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and the biggest U.S. banks face billions of dollars in legal costs related to their role in the financial crisis, threatening their profits and the stock price gains they made in 2010, analysts said.

JPMorgan, the second biggest bank by assets, reported $5.2 billion of legal costs in the first nine months of 2009, compared with a gain of $10 million in the same period a year earlier. The costs would rise if the bank reserves for multibillion-dollar lawsuits byLehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the trustee liquidating Bernard L. Madoff’s firm.

... JPMorgan’s third-quarter net profit of $4.4 billion, up 23 percent from the year earlier, would have been larger if it hadn’t set aside $1.3 billion of pretax income for lawsuits and $1 billion for mortgage repurchases. Banks haven’t yet reported their results for the fourth quarter.

In a Nutshell, JPM’s quarterly results were downright horrible – as we expected and warned of in our previous quarterly analyses (see notes at bottom of page)…

JP Morgan’s Q3 net revenue declined 11% y/y (-5% q/q) to $24.8bn as investment banking revenue declined 18% y/y (-9% q/q) to $12.6bn from $13.9bn in the previous year and net interest income declined 2% y/y (-2% q/q, off of a combination of ZIRP victimization and a rapidly shrinking asset base and loan book) to $12.5bn versus $12.7bn in the previous year. Non-interest expense increased 7% y/y (-2% q/q) to $14.4bn as compensation expenses to net revenues remained broadly flat (28% vs 27.5%) while non-compensation expenses to net revenues jumped to 33% vs 23% in the corresponding period last year. As a result of “Fraudclosure” we expect this number to skyrocket next quarter. Overall, the efficiency ratio (total expenses-to-net revenues) increased to 60% vs 51% and we expect this ratio to spike next quarter as well as the banking business becomes even more expensive.

As a result, banks allowances for loan losses have decreased to 4.9% in Q3 from 5.1% in Q2 and 4.7% in previous year. Although under provisioning has helped the bank to mask its dearth in profits it has also materially undermined its ability to absorb losses if economic conditions worsen. The Eyles test, a measure of banks ability to absorb losses, has consequently worsened to 1.9% in Q3 from 3.7% in Q2 and 5.9% in Q3 09.

Wait a minute! If Reggie Middleton complained about reserve pulling and legal expenses 1,2 and 3 years ago and was proven right, how are the occurence of these items in 2013 to be considered "One Time" items????